LAPD detective Rita Rizzoli, Whoopi Goldberg, stages an undercover buy of a dangerous new cocaine strain named “Fatal Beauty” with dealer Tito Delgadillo, but she interrupts the deal to rush in and protect her informant Charlene from a brutal beating by her pimp. Delgadillo escapes with the cash and holes up in a Chinatown warehouse where Fatal Beauty is manufactured. In the chaos that follows, two small-time hoodlums, Leo Nova, Brad Dourif, and Earl Skinner, Michael DeLorenzo, storm the joint, slaughter the rest of the gang, and unknowingly walk away with a botched, dangerously adulterated batch of the drug. Rita later identifies Delgadillo’s body and uncovers another corpse inside a van stamped with the name “Kroll Enterprises.” She pushes to investigate the company’s owner, Conrad Kroll, Harris Yulin, but is met with resistance from Lt. Kellerman, John P. Ryan, who cites Kroll’s political ties and Rita’s previous drug bust as reasons to back off.
Charlene, Cathianne Blore, reveals that the warehouse owner drove a Rolls Royce, which leads Rita to infiltrate Kroll’s opulent Beverly Hills mansion and confront the mogul about drug dealing. After she is ordered to leave by Kellerman, a scanner call erupts into a chaotic standoff at Charlene’s Hollywood home. A man, evidently under Fatal Beauty’s spell, fires at the police but remains unnervingly upright even after a gunshot; Rita discovers Charlene dead from an overdose and learns from Charlene’s young son that the drugs came from her new pimp, Jimmy Silver. The LAPD soon uncovers that Fatal Beauty runs at 50% purity and is laced with phencyclidine, driving users to madness and rapid death. Rita and her partner, a detective whose name appears in the case file, close in on Jimmy Silver and his supplier Rafael, David Harris, and bring them into custody.
A violent confrontation erupts as Rita and her team close the net on Nova and Skinner, but they are briefly saved by Kroll’s loyal bodyguard, Mike Marshak, Sam Elliott. After Rita recovers from a gunshot wound, Marshak convinces her to let him drive her home while Jiminez handles another flare-up with Nova. In the aftermath, Rita and Marshak learn that preteen children in her neighborhood are dying after taking Fatal Beauty, including Zack Jaeger, James Le Gros, a neighbor’s son. Cecile Jaeger, Jennifer Warren, informs Rita that her dealer, Denny Miflin, Neill Barry, will be meeting Nova and Skinner at Kroll Plaza that night to finalize a dangerous sale.
Kroll orders Marshak and the security team to kill Nova, Skinner, and Rita, but Marshak tips Rita off just in time. In the ensuing gunfight, Nova and Skinner are killed along with most of Kroll’s guards, and Kroll himself falls amid the chaos. Rita and Marshak emerge with injuries, and as Marshak is loaded into an ambulance, he candidly tells Rita that his actions may land him in prison. She responds with a quiet, steadfast kiss, vowing to wait for him after his release, a moment that seals their complicated, fragile connection as the case closes.
